by Ralph Cotton
Daniels shivered more violently. Webb held him more firmly in the crook of his arm. “Sure, I whacked her a good one upside of her head—what man wouldn’t under the circumstances?” Daniels said. “But Lord knows I could never do her no real harm.” He paused, then added, “Or you neither, not after seeing what we’ve seen out here. If I ever raise my hand to another man, it’ll have to be for something worse than him sleeping with my woman, I can tell you that. I fear for my immortal soul just thinking what all we’ve done out here. And this is all within the law.”
“I think I understand what you mean,” said Webb. “I’ll never look at killing the same way. I’ll never talk about it the same way either, law or no law.”
Daniels closed his eyes and whispered, “God, I love that woman so much…that’s really why I came along on this posse. I thought it was just so I could find a chance to kill you. But that wasn’t it, Deputy. It was because I was so wild and tormented I didn’t know what else to do.”
Abner Webb listened with regret. “Dang it, Edmund, I wish I’d known you felt this way about her before anything happened between us. Maybe it would have made a difference.” He rubbed his forehead with his free hand. His voice began to crack a bit as he spoke. “I’d never done anything like that before…not with another man’s wife. I don’t know what got into me.”
“Really?” Edmund Daniels opened his eyes and looked up into Webb’s. “Funny, I convinced myself that you had been telling all your friends, bragging about it. Having yourself a good old time at my expense.”
“No,” Abner Webb said firmly. “I’d never have done something like that.” Then he admitted, “Well, I did talk to Will Summers about it…but that was only after it was in the open.”
“I expect Will Summers told you you’d better kill me before I killed you. That’s what a devil like him would whisper in a man’s ear, I reckon.”
“I don’t remember,” said Webb, feeling more and more ashamed of what he’d done. “Why don’t you take it easy, Edmund. Maybe you shouldn’t be talking right now.”
“I beg to differ with you, Deputy,” Edmund Daniels replied, the cold of night causing his voice to tremble despite the nearness of the fire. “Right now is all I’ve got…talking or otherwise.”
“You need hearing it, do you?” Webb asked softly. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Yeah, I believe I do,” said Daniels.
A short silence passed, then Webb said, “I fell in love with her, Edmund. That’s the whole of it. I never meant for it to happen. But it was in play before I even saw it coming. If it helps you any, I believe that’s the way it was for her too. She didn’t do it to hurt you, I’m sure of that much. She told me she couldn’t help how she felt any more than I could. Said she’d sooner die than have you ever find out about it.” He hesitated for a moment, then added in a lowered tone, “Said she loved us both…said she hoped she’d never have to choose between us.”
“You mean she said all that to you…?” Daniels let his words trail. “We never talked that much to one another since we was first married.”
“That’s too bad,” said Webb. “But I believe what she said, that she never stopped caring about you…. Not that we talked that much about it, I mean,” he added quickly. “The fact is, she never left you for me. She could have. To be honest, I even asked her to.” He looked ashamed. “But she never did. That ought to tell you something.”
“Yeah, I suppose it does,” said Daniels. He sighed, reflecting on everything. Then he said, “It nearly killed me at first when I found out about it. The pain made me sick. It got down deep in my belly like something with sharp claws and hung on. It tore me up. I couldn’t stand the picture of you being there, then of me being there afterward, never suspecting that she’d done the same things with you she’d done with me.”
“Let’s not talk anymore about—”
“No, let’s do talk about it, Deputy,” said Daniels, cutting him off. “Because right now I want to be with her so bad I can’t stand it. For some reason, being here with you is like having her with me. Like you and me have become kin through her in some crazy kind of way….” Daniels’ voice drifted for a second. It appeared as if he’d dozed off.
“Edmund?” Webb shook him slightly, afraid he’d died.
But Daniels came back around, opening his eyes and taking a deep breath. “I want you to promise me something, Deputy.”
“What’s that?” Webb asked.
“Promise me you’ll take good care of her,” said Daniels.
“Don’t—don’t say that, Edmund.” Webb winced. “I can’t make you a promise like that. Besides, you ain’t going nowhere. You’ve just lost lots of blood. You’ll do better now that you’re not bleeding.”
“I got this feeling that I’m not going back, Deputy. Maybe that I’m going to die out here…or maybe not. Maybe that I’m just going to drift off on my own to someplace nobody knows me. Either way, take care of her. She’s a good woman, no matter about this thing that happened.”
“Hush, Edmund. I can’t make a promise like that,” said Webb.
“Why can’t you? You told me how you feel about her. I’m not going to be around. I’ve no more hard feelings about it…. Well, that is, I’m not bent on doing anybody any harm.”
“I just can’t, Edmund,” said Webb. But his voice lacked conviction as he realized how easily he could. “It’s not right, this way.”
Daniels heard his voice relent a bit, and he said, “Listen to me. We both know how we feel about her. Go back to Rileyville and the two of you be happy. There’s seven thousand dollars in my name in the bank up in Cheyenne. She doesn’t know about it. Go there, the two of you. Take it and enjoy it. Promise me you will! Damn it, I mean it! Promise me!” As he spoke, his voice became more and more insistent. He grasped Webb’s forearm and began pulling himself up.
“All right. Settle down. I promise I will,” said Webb, pressing him back down. “Keep quiet. It’s risky enough having this fire going.”
Daniels relaxed. “I’m all right now. Just see that you keep your word.”
Webb didn’t answer. Instead, he turned his eyes toward the sound of something moving in closer from the outer darkness of the flatlands. Daniels felt Webb tense up, and he whispered, “What is it, Deputy?”
“Shhh. Somebody’s coming. Lie still,” said Webb. “Maybe all they’ve seen is the firelight so far.”
“Get ready,” said Daniels, “and get out of here when I kill the fire.”
“What? You’re crazy. Lie still,” said Webb. “Let’s make sure it’s not one of our own—”
His words cut short as Edmund Daniels cocked a pistol and rolled off his lap. “What the hell?” said Webb, his hand slapping the holster on his hip and realizing it was empty. While they’d been talking, Daniels had somehow snuck his Colt from his holster. Why? A cold realization came to him, but the thought barely had time to register before the sound of voices split the night, speaking in broken English.
“Hey you, gringo!” said a voice from a distance of thirty yards or more. “Stand up and raise your hands! We have you in our sights.”
“They haven’t seen us both yet,” Daniels whispered. “Get out of here.”
“I can’t leave you,” Webb whispered.
“Yes, you can,” Daniels replied. “Here I go.”
For a split second their eyes met in the low flicker of firelight. But it was long enough for Webb to see what Daniels meant to do. He started to say something, to try to stop Daniels somehow. But Daniels moved quickly—too quickly, thought Webb, for a man who’d lost a lot of blood. Before Webb could stop him, Edmund Daniels lunged forward across the small fire, aiming the Colt into the darkness with both hands. As the fire died beneath his belly, flames flared up around his sides and licked at his shirt, then went out with a terrible sizzling hiss. “Go!” he screamed as the pistol slammed round after round into the darkness.
The Federale’s rifles responded instantly.
Bullets sliced past Abner Webb’s head as he rolled away from the smell of burning cloth and flesh, hearing Daniels’ sustained tortured scream through the cacophony of gunfire. Then Daniel’s scream stopped abruptly. Webb heard the hard thump of bullets pounding into flesh and bone and dirt as he rolled away instinctively and scrambled across the ground on his belly. Black smoke rose high in his wake. He caught a glimpse of his horse turning and bolting away as he crawled toward it.
Only when he’d scrambled over a low rise of earth did Abner Webb stumble to his feet and run blindly across rocky ground and through scrub brush as the rifle fire continued to explode behind him. “Jesus!” he sobbed under his breath, looking back at the deadly blossoms of rifle shots dancing and spinning on the black belly of night. “What in the name of God am I doing here?” He ran harder, knowing that any minute the Federales would swoop down upon him on horseback. He could almost feel the cut of cold, sharp saber steel across his back.
In his panic and desperation, Abner Webb did not realize the ground had run out beneath his feet until he had taken three steps on thin air and begun to fall. His scream lingered long and loud above him as he sailed out and downward into what he could only imagine to be a bottomless pit.
Near the sizzling body of Edmund Daniels, the six Federales stopped in their tracks at the sound of Abner Webb’s scream. A corporal named Luna, who wore a thick mustache, turned to the two young men nearest him and said in Spanish, “Hector, Felipe, get out there. Bring him back if he hasn’t broken his stupid neck.”
“Sí, Corporal Luna!” said one of the men, fanning his hand before his face to diminish the smell of burning flesh. The two men hurried away.
“The rest of you drag this fool from the fire. The smell is making me sick.” He looked all around, then added, “Everybody spread out…search for the Gatling gun. That German pig Oberiske will not rest until he has his hands on it.”
In the silver light of morning, Will Summers looked out and down on the wide valley from a perch where he, Sherman Dahl and Sergeant Teasdale had assembled the Gatling gun on its stand and taken turns keeping watch on the flatlands throughout the night. Sporadic gunfire had come and gone, but it had ceased over the past couple of hours. Will Summers had made a quick count of the bullets in his rifle chamber and pistol belt, contemplating what he and his two companions should do once the sun came up. Soon the silver-gray mist would vanish from above the low-lying brush and dry creek beds below. The heat of day would return with a vengeance.
For now, the sleeping land lay still as death. Yet as Summers raised the single field lens to his eye and scanned the breadth of the rugged terrain, he caught a glimpse of the Federales as they came into sight, two prisoners walking ahead of them. The prisoners staggered forward like drunkards, their hands tied in front of them.
“My goodness, Deputy Webb,” Will Summers whispered aloud to himself, “look what you’ve gotten yourself into now.” Through the lens, Summers could see the bruises and cuts on Abner Webb’s face and chest. “No sooner does your face get back to its normal size than you go get yourself beaten half to hell again.” He reached a hand down to Teasdale’s shoulder and shook him lightly. “Wake up, Sergeant. You’ve got to see this.”
Teasdale came awake and eased up beside him, rubbing his tired, bloodshot eyes. “What is it, Summers?” he asked.
Summers handed him the field lens. “It’s the deputy,” said Summers. “He’s gotten himself captured. Looks like six soldiers in all. You can bet they’ll be meeting up with the rest of their company before long.”
As Teasdale looked down at the procession on the flatlands and Will Summers stared through his naked eye, Sherman Dahl awakened and rose up beside them. Having heard their hushed conversation, he said, “It’s good to know one of our men is still alive.”
“Yep.” Teasdale watched through the lens and said, “The other one must be one of the Peltry Gang.”
“We’re all the same to the Federales,” said Summers. “As long as we’ve got something they want, we better manage to keep one step ahead of their game.”
“We’ll have to take all six of them,” said Dahl. “How’re you two fixed for ammunition?”
“I’m low,” said Will Summers. “But I’ve got enough to see me through the day…providing we take whatever the Federales are carrying on them. What about you, schoolmaster?”
“I’m down to less than twenty rounds between my pistol and this rifle,” said Dahl. They both looked up at Teasdale as he scanned the flatlands. “What about you, Sergeant?” Dahl asked. “Have you got enough to last the day?”
“Not if we’re going to start taking on the Mexican army before breakfast,” said Teasdale without taking the lens down from his eye. “I’m holding about fifty rounds.”
“How about the machine rifle?” Dahl asked Summers.
“Over a couple of hundred rounds left,” said Summers. “But that big gun eats bullets real quick. We’ll have to keep a close watch on how we shoot it.”
“I understand,” said Dahl, a ring of confident efficiency to his voice. “Think there’s any chance of getting the deputy loose without any gunplay?”
“You saw how it all went last night, schoolmaster,” said Summers. “What do you think?”
“I’d like to try reasoning with them first,” said Dahl. “If nothing else, it’ll give the deputy a chance to see it’s us before the shooting starts.”
“That might be a good idea,” said Will Summers. “Got any tricks we might use this time?”
“Not this time,” said Dahl, lifting his pistol from his holster, checking it and spinning the cylinder down his shirtsleeve. “I’m all out of tricks.”
Watching how slickly and effortlessly Sherman Dahl handled the big pistol, Summers offered a thin smile and said, “I can’t help wondering about you, schoolmaster. You sure have seemed right at home through all this.”
“I learned a long time ago to take this life as it comes to me, Summers,” said Dahl. “There’s nothing special about it. I just refuse to let things rattle me.” He returned Summers’ smile. “I think it amuses you to watch a man get rattled. You’re an observer of human nature, whether you realize it or not.”
“Oh? Then thanks for telling me,” Summers replied. “Suppose that’s something that’ll help me out once we get down there and tangle horns with the Federales?”
“I don’t know, but it certainly can’t hurt,” said Dahl, spinning his pistol expertly back into his holster.
As Summers and Dahl talked, Teasdale swung the field lens across the flatlands to a rising drift of dust on the horizon. He saw the riders come into sight, their horses looking tired and dirt-streaked, moving slow. “Here come the Peltrys now.” He lowered the lens from his eye and handed it to Will Summers. “I’ve got a feeling this could turn into a real busy day before we know it.”
“I’ve got that same feeling,” said Sherman Dahl. He stood up and began disassembling the Gatling gun from its stand.
Chapter 18
In a dry creek bed that snaked three miles across the flatlands, Monk Dupre and Abner Webb staggered along in front of the six mounted Federales. After an hour of rough walking, the creek bed narrowed to a rocky halt where thorny brush and cactus grew too thick to penetrate. Struggling up the side of the sandy bank to the trail, Abner Webb stopped and wobbled in place at the sight of Sherman Dahl sitting atop his horse and staring at him from less than thirty feet away. “Uh-oh,” said Webb, his voice carrying a warning even to himself. Coming up the bank behind Webb, Monk Dupre bumped into him and stumbled to the side.
“Watch out, damn it!” Dupre cursed. But then he too saw the mounted figure sitting sideways across their trail. “Friend of yours?” he whispered sidelong to Abner Webb without taking his eyes off Sherman Dahl. “Because if he is, don’t forget: I know every water stop, whorehouse and cantina twixt here and—”
“Silencio!” Corporal Luna shouted down at Dupre. Gigging his horse to one side to allow the rest of
his men up the dry creek bank, Corporal Luna stared at the lone rider and waited until his last man had stepped his horse up over the edge of the bank and sidled it over near the others. “Steady, men,” Luna purred in Spanish, watching his men spread out alongside him. Hands poised attentively on pistol butts. Rifles rested across laps in tense hands. Thumbs tightened across rifle hammers.
Sherman Dahl had also been waiting for all the Federales to appear up out of the creek bed. As soon as the last one rode up into sight, he called out to the corporal, “Saludos, viajeros del compañeros.” Then he smiled calmly, his hand resting on his rifle stock, the rifle lying across his lap and pointing straight at Corporal Luna’s chest.
“Listen to this loco gringo,” Luna whispered in Spanish to the man nearest him. “He tries to say, ‘Greetings, fellow travelers’ to us? As if this is some mindless game we play here?” He appeared astonished by Dahl’s insolence. He looked around quickly, trying to understand why a lone rider would act this way. Then he settled a bit and took on a devil-may-care attitude himself, looking back at Sherman Dahl. “Saludos to you as well. What can I do for you this fine, clear morning, por favor?”
“I came to offer you a trade,” Dahl said, keeping his horse perfectly still beneath him. He nodded toward Abner Webb. “My friend there for something you value most highly.”
Corporal Luna perked up. “Oh? You have the machine rifle? You are willing to trade it for your amigo?” He cocked his head, looking Webb up and down. Then he grinned, enjoying the game, and said, “I have to tell you, he don’t look so good, your amigo. I think I would be taking advantage of you.” The line of Federales stifled nervous laughter.
“Huh-uh.” Sherman Dahl shook his head slowly, “The machine rifle’s not what I had in mind.”
“Oh, it’s not?” Corporal Luna’s expression turned cold and serious. “Then what is this thing of value that you will trade me for your amigo?” He shrugged for his men’s sake. “Go on, we are all listening.”
